It\u2019s always good to talk to SuccessFactors.\u00a0 After all, like Kleenex and tissue paper, SuccessFactors has almost locked themselves and the brand most affiliated with talent management software.\u00a0 There is more hype than ever around talent management and implementations, but in the recent HR Technology show in Chicago, SuccessFactors seemed to lag in the hype department compared to major competitors.\u00a0 These guys have proven over several years that they can compete as well as market, and I certainly had questions around their current marketing.<\/p>\n
With major competitors all around launching new Web 2.0 releases, I was shocked that SuccessFactors with some pretty minor press releases around recruiting.\u00a0 Their response was 3-fold:
\n1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are lots of products out there making really pretty demos, but those products are not ready for release.\u00a0 Customers may be helping with prototyping (betas), but the key questions are whether the software is real, and whether a cool looking GUI front end is really going to correlate to customer success.
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SuccessFactors does have Web 2.0, but has focused in a different area.\u00a0 Rather than the immediate bang that comes from a cool looking front end, they have been putting social media in place (for example, using wikis in the performance process to create new ways of approaching ongoing performance management).
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SuccessFactors seemed to acknowledge the gap and are currently working on developing a Web 2.0 front end.\u00a0 While they didn\u2019t seem to place strategic importance on this, they realize that it\u2019s a necessity in today\u2019s marketing reality.\u00a0 The best looking product often wins.<\/p>\n
While I generally agree with point #1, If the UI is well executed, there are real opportunities to drive up user adoption rates as well as usability.\u00a0 Web 2.0 is theoretically all about usability.\u00a0 So while \u201ccool looking\u201d is not important, it often comes with all sorts of other benefits.\u00a0 (and as stated in point #3, SuccessFactors is definitely getting in the game).<\/p>\n
When it comes to point #2, I\u2019ve been writing for a long time about using social media in the talent processes.\u00a0 This is a really cool area and I don\u2019t know where companies are really implementing this yet.\u00a0 However, it\u2019s definitely up and coming functionality, and SuccessFactors might be ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n
At the core of the product is philosophy.\u00a0 The core of talent to them is Performance Management.\u00a0 Everything starts there, and I think they make a good case that this is true.\u00a0 Rob\u2019s comment to me that \u201cPerformance is the keystone\u201d might not only apply to the talent management function, but to HR as a whole (or the enterprise, but defining performance starts to shift a bit at that level).\u00a0 To make this philosophy executable, they have really thought about integration points throughout their suite of products, and have created a product set that allows data to flow seamlessly regardless of whether they have the coolest UI or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s always good to talk to SuccessFactors.\u00a0 After all, like Kleenex and tissue paper, SuccessFactors has almost locked themselves and the brand most affiliated with talent management software.\u00a0 There is more hype than ever around talent management and implementations, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,20,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hr-technology","category-talent-management","category-vendors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}